Tag Archives: representative journalism

“Network weaving is not just ‘networking’, nor schmoozing. Weaving brings people together for projects, initially small, so they can learn to collaborate. Through that collaboration they strengthen the community and increase the knowledge available in it.”
Valdis Krebs and June Holley

Leonard Witt down in Georgia has some interesting ideas about representative journalism. He’s worked out the money ideas of hiring professional journalists for small interest groups of 1,000 or so. The quote above is from a PDF paper linked at his site, explaining the role of a “network weaver.” He advances the idea that a weaver, or marketer, or community builder, is necessary to make connections among groups interested in particular information. He says that job enables the funding of high-quality journalism.

One example he uses: the long-established carpet-making community in Dalton, Ga. I can imagine another similar one: the BMW community of Upstate South Carolina. I searched around quickly to see if anyone was already there, and found a post on a national blog that validated what any soccer parent knows: The best news comes from the soccer sidelines. Confirming it, spreading it, reporting it in the online community facilitated by a weaver is the next step.